Skookum Logging & Transport
N - scale Railroad
The virgin timber was cut by the faller, being very careful to save a Spar tree. A climber went up the spar removing the limbs. He cut the top out of it and rigged it for hauling and loading the massive logs. A steam driven donkey fueled by wood, then later by oil was moved into place and the wire rope was strung. A choker setter set a line around the massive logs and they were hauled into the landing and loaded onto a log car.
A variety of steam locomotives, or "lokeys" as they were called like Shay, Climax, Mallet, Mikado, Consolidation, Baldwin, Prairie and The Minnetonka pulled log cars over miles of track and sometimes poorly constructed trestle bridges over deep canyons. Trestles were built from material on hand and usually on a curve in order to add strength. When built on a straightaway the flimsey contraptions would wobble.
Three railroad miles outside Sekiu, Washington, near the northwest tip of the continental United States is Robinson Bridge. Though poorly constructed it was at the time it was erected, 1890, the highest structure of it's kind in the world. It is one of the most extreme examples of long trestle bridges used during the steam era. The Robinson Bridge was 804 feet long and 208 feet high. It was wobbly in places. When a train load of logs was about to cross the engine was stopped. The fireman would walk across the bridge to act as a catcher. The engineer would crack the throttle then quickly disembark and let the train make the crossing unattended.
On an old logging road approximately 25 miles north of the small city of Montesano, Washington is a deep gorge on the Wynooche river. Years ago a logging trestle crossed this deep gorge. In the early 1960's Hollywood made a movie, "Ring of Fire." In that movie they destroyed the trestle with a steam loky and at least one car. You can still see the remains of the trestle on top of the gorge, and train wreckage in the bottom of the gorge. I first found the gorge in about 1967. I was last there about 15 years ago. I tried to find it again last summer but I couldn't find the right road this time.
SL&T has it's headquarters in the town of Skookum on the edge of The Skookum River Valley. Besides logging we operate a rail passenger and freight service hauling lumber from the lumber mill and gravel from the crusher out of the valley and freight for the many farms and businesses into the valley.
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